Formula One

BB

Safety cars are always the "wild card" in F1. They can benefit all sides of the contest. However it does seem a strange strategy on the part of Mercedes not to have pitted LH when they had an opportunity? When Max pitted under, I think, under the virtual safety car, the expectation was that he would start to eat into the 20 second lead that LH had. Max did start to eat into that lead but had to overcome 4/5 cars that were also racing for position so if had remained that way I imagine LH would have won. When the real safety car was employed Max once again pitted to put on the faster soft tyres but because of the slow speed of the safety car Max was able to be right on LH's tail. By then LH's tyres were so old that he didn't stand a chance. Perhaps its not over yet? Having said that I don't think you can change the result so long after the race conclusion. Perhaps what will happen is that for next season the rules will be tightened? Having said that the Race Steward has always got to have room to make a decision and sometimes those decisions won't be to everyone's liking?

David

..but Lewis had to pass those cars 'racing for position' just before the safety car..

just because the safety car is slow, cars behind it should maintain gaps..it's just nonsensical to say that Max was a) allowed to have all the obstacles to Lewis removed and b) to also allow him to get within feet of Lewis immediately prior to 'the off'...total sham, whatever had gone before in other races...

Nonsensical or not, it is within the regulations at the moment. As are things like being able to change tyres under a red flag. Sometimes they favour one team, other times another. The team who comes out of it on top  is generally the one with the best strategy and a modicum of luck. Today that was Red Bull. 

But Max wasn't on Lewis's tail until they released the lapped cars to overtake the safety car. Once that happens,  drivers start to take up positions for the restart. You could claim that Lewis deliberately went so slow that almost caused Max to crash in the back of him. The leading car controls the race once the safety car goes in. The trouble for Lewis was that is tyres were shot so he was an easy target for Max. All that was a strategic error on the part of Mercedes as I have tried to point out in other posts.

David

And what's also nonsensical is that the cars between Lewis and Max were told to un-lap themselves giving Max a free run at Lewis, but the lapped cars between Max and third place Carlos Sainz were made to stay in place making sure Max couldn't come under attack from behind. 

As you say, a total sham.

It would be interesting if the race director made public why he changed his mind from issuing the instructions that no lapped cars would be able to un-lap themselves, then changing his mind to only let the cars between Lewis and Max to get out of the way.

I think in retrospect they probably wished they red flagged it after the crash. Then everyone would have a chance to change tyres and it would have been a restart from there positions before the crash. Not perfect but it would have given LH a fighting chance and perhaps avoided this controversy if Max had subsequently won.

Formula 1 is far too contrived to be considered a sport these days DRS, mad tyres, and flexible rules gives a Wacky races element. More like WWF  "entertainment" than pure racing, FIA needs to get back to basics.

On the contrary I think Mercedes had the strategy right.

Max qualified on soft tyres and Lewis qualified on the medium tyres. Whether or not Max made a mistake at the start Lewis took the lead and was comfortable pulling away from Max lap by lap. So, Mercedes had the better strategy for the start.

During the VSC Max changed his tyre and Lewis stayed out. When the VSF ended, once again Lewis was increasing his lead lap by lap until he almost had a pit stops distance between himself and Max so again Mercedes strategy proved to be the right one.

Then there was the full safety car with 5 laps to go. Mercedes made the call to leave Lewis out expecting the race director to apply the regulation as written. The Race director had two options so lets look at those.

1.      Leave all the cars in the current position and once the track was clear bring in the safety car. Under these conditions Max would have to pass 5 cars to win the race. He would have been assisted by blue flags, but with only a short distance to the end of the race Lewis would more than likely kept the lead.

2.      Once it was safe, allow all lapped cars to un-lap themselves and then run 1 further lap behind the safety car. The time this would have taken meant that the race would have ended behind the safety car and again Lewis would have kept the lead.

Again I think Mercedes made the right strategy call. What Mercedes could not have anticipated is that the race director would make up new regulations on the fly and give an overwhelming advantage to one car.

Well done Max Verstappen for a great and entertaining seasons racing it's what the sport has needed for the last 7 years.  Increasingly the people that matter, in my opinion, the spectators and viewers both last weekend and yesterday overwhelmingly voted Max Verstappen the 'Driver of the Day'  award.

Crashtappen was 12.3 seconds behind LH (and 5 lapped cars) when the VSC was implemented.

How come he was not the same time behind at the re-start of the 'race?' (I know about SC rules)  FIA are a joke, the race was exciting, but just a total farce, resulting in them rushing their decisions, changing their minds re lapped cars (all within seconds) in order to provide a 'spectacle' of one laps' racing. They didn't take into account, the previous 57 laps or race strategy other teams had implemented. No wonder Toto Wolf was fuming!

I applaud Max and Lewis for the way they conducted themselves post race. Shame a whole season was decided like this.